On July 8th, Jeff usually known
for his basketball skills broke out his baseball glove for the 2001 All Star
Legends and Celebrity Softball Game, which was telecast earlier in the week by
ESPN in Seattle. Eddie
also got caught up in All-Star fever as he participated in former major league
pitcher Jack McDowell's Major League Baseball Charity Benefit concert at
Seattle's Showbox on July 9th. He
played a few songs with Wellwater Conspiracy (Red Light Green Light, Felicity's
Surprise) and the Supersuckers (Poor Girl). The
legends and celebrity game raised money for Arts Corps, which is a Seattle
program aimed at inspiring children to create art via music, poetry, or acting
instead of engaging in detrimental activities.

"When that kind of got pulled out from
underneath my feet I was like, 'OK, what's God telling me here? What am I
supposed to do?' And so I was really contemplating going to art school at that
point because it was really something in the back of my head, and it's still in
the back of my head. I could imagine getting a loft in New York or whatever and
just painting for six months", Jeff Ament.

Notesand Quotes:
The show started off with Stickfigure (Jack McDowell's band). Next was
Wellwater Conspiracy. About 5 songs in, Eddie walked up on stage. He did 2 songs
with Wellwater (Red Light Green Light, and Felicity's Surprise). Pete Droge
played next with his acoustic guitar and Elaine Summer who sang backup. After
Marcy Playground, The Supersuckers came up on stage. They rocked the house. For
their last song, Eddie Spaghetti (singer) said how lucky they were to be able to
play songs with so many people including "Eddie Vedder, who's here tonight,
and we're going to play a song with him". So they played a cover of the X
song called "Poor Girl" that appeared on the "Free the West
Memphis 3" CD. Mudhoney was the last band to step up into the stage and
before returning for the encore a few people started chanting "Eddie, Eddie".
The funny thing was that Eddie was right behind them. He was the main
responsible for the Mudhoney encore cause he managed to quiet those guys down
and influenced them to chant Mudhoney instead of Eddie.

At the beggining of July, Stone helped building homes for indigent Lakota elders
in South Dakota as he did in previous years. Mike McCready rented a studio in
Seattle for some jam sessions with fellow musicians.

"Building the straw houses combines elements that cannot be utilized when
building traditional houses. It allows unskilled labor to participate, but the
houses are easy to build and very efficient. It’s a beautiful construction
style", Stone Gossard.
"We're going to record some. I don't know exactly when, but in the next
six months. And I don't think it's going to be that long before we have a record
done. But you never know. We're definitely letting ourselves relax this point in
terms of everybody feeling like we've come a long way. We need to allow
ourselves enough time to really be fresh when we get back together. That's
basically what everyone's doing. But my guess is we'd be doing some recording at
some point relatively soon", Stone Gossard [July
01].

"Mike McCready rented out a studio here [in Seattle] for the last three or
four days. I think it's more because he loves to record and play guitar. He's
inviting people down and just screwing around and having a good time. I was down
there for a couple of nights writing with him, jamming, playing songs of his and
some of mine. There's some of that, but there's not a lot of that. In general,
when the band is apart, everyone is refueling. We know we're going to spend six
or nine months together every other year, and that's a lot of time. We love it.
But at the same time, when you're not in that mode, there's a lot of energy that
gets going when all of us are in the same room. It's sometimes difficult to
harness that energy. Usually you need to gear up for it: this is our time frame;
let's go in and make something happen. Bring your best stuff", Stone
Gossard.

On July 21th, Mike played the Stones "Dead
Flowers" and Neil Young´s "Powderfinger" at the Gibson´s Bar
and Grill in Seattle, in a party with his bandmates from The Rockfords.